Geneva-Cotonou, July 2011. The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and its local partner in Benin, Solidarity for Children in Africa and the World (ESAM), publish their report on the situation of children deprived of liberty in Benin. It focuses on the various forms of violence perpetrated against those children while in police custody and pre- and post-trial detention. It also shows that the conditions of children in detention fail to satisfy international standards.
Thanks to the official authorisation to visit the prisons, the OMCT and ESAM (member of the OMCT SOS/Torture network in Benin since 2003) have conducted more than 30 monitoring visits between September 2009 and February 2011. The situation observed and the information collected during those visits as well as the various meetings and seminars with the authorities and the civil society are gathered in the report. It confirms the critical findings contained in the UN Subcommittee for the prevention of torture 2008 mission report[1], namely:
- that ill-treatment, including torture, is often used against children in police stations;
- that the conditions of child detention often amount to inhuman and degrading treatment;
- that several of the children’s quarters (where boys are detained) and women’s quarters (where girls are kept) in the prisons are overcrowded. This situation results from overuse of deprivation of liberty and lengthy pre-trial detention and leads to appalling conditions of detention;
- that the separation of children from adult detainees is limited. In police custody, there is no such separation. In the prisons, although boys are kept in separate quarters, girls remain detained with women.
The report contains a series of detailed recommendations to the attention of the authorities and other relevant stakeholders. It ends with the comments from the Ministry of Justice of Benin that was offered the opportunity to read and comment the report before it was published.
Link report (only in French) : OMCT-ESAM_Rapport sur les conditions de privation de
liberté des mineurs au Bénin
[1] Report on the visit of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment to Benin, UN Doc CAT/OP/BEN.1. Available at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/opcat/docs/ReportVisitBenin-AdvanceCopy.pdf.
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